The summer is a good time of the year to create a canvas with maritime motifs. If you craft a lot you may find a lot of items in your craft stash that are useful to create a project such as this one. Larger and more detailed images of this craft can be found here.
Materials needed and how this project was done:
There are no set rules to making such a canvas. Nor are there any set items you need to start off with other than a canvas, a couple of paper napkins with motifs of your choice and some paint. The rest is up to you. A lot of time, the motif/ motifs on the napkin will set the theme and inspire the rest. Just let your creativity flow and have fun doing it. Some of the embellishments used for this project will be introduced below and shows you how this particular canvas was created.
First of all, gesso was used to prepare the canvas to make it easier to work with.
Then a paper napkin with a newsprint motif was used to cover the canvas. Decoupage glue was used to apply the top layer of the paper napkin.
Then two blue acrylic paints were mixed with white paint and watered down.
Then the paint was applied with a sponge around the outside edges. The paper napkin with the maritime motifs was then used for this craft.
Decoupage glue was used to apply the napkin. A spot was in the middle of the gull which did not look attractive. So a second gull image from the same napkin was applied to a piece of white card. Only the top layer of the napkin got used. After it dried, the gull was cut exactly out and glued onto the canvas to cover the original gull.
A small piece of decoupage paper with fish was found in the stash and then used to cover the right corner of the canvas. Another napkin with a seashell motif was found and the seashell was glued onto the canvas, too.
Yet another napkin with maritime motifs was found and two motifs from it were cut out and the bottom layers were set aside. Other embellishments such as resin shells, metal shells, a ship’s wheel, a decoupage paper lobster and silver netting were also pulled out of the stash as possible items to use for this project.
A piece of aluminum foil was glued to the right corner and then a net square was adhered over it. Then the paper napkin fish was glued over the net.
Maritime stamps and maritime peel-off stickers are also useful for such a project.
The sun motif of the stamp was stamped onto white tissue paper using archival ink. This prevents it from smearing. Then once the ink was dry, the image was roughly cut out and then applied to the canvas just like you would apply a paper napkin.
Bubble wrap was slightly painted and used to print bubbles on various areas of the canvas.
A stamp sticker with a ship was stuck to the bottom left corner of the canvas. A starfish resin embellishment was glued over the right side of it. Then the edge of the stamp was darkened with a Sharpie®.
A Sharpie® was also used to color one of the peel-off seagulls. The paper napkin ship was adhered to the upper right middle area of the canvas.
Then seagulls were stamped onto the canvas around the areas of the ships and the lighthouse. Sharpies® were also used to enhance the color of the lighthouse. The ship’s wheel was also adhered to the larger ship.
A seaman’s knot was created and then glued onto the wooden pole. The sentiment “Sea Breeze” was stamped onto a piece of cardstock and cut out. The edges were darkened with archival ink. Then the words were glued to the top right of the canvas.
As final touches, the entire edge of the canvas was darkened with acrylic paint and a sponge. After the paint dried, a coat of clear sealer was applied to the canvas. Then glitter was lightly shaken onto the still wet sealer and the canvas was left to dry.
